


That the Revolution's Near

by Edoraslass



Series: Dirty Old Town [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Gangster violence, Gen, this is going to hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 13:28:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/723807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edoraslass/pseuds/Edoraslass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yusuf hates this town.  He’s saving every cent he earns that isn’t going towards protection money, and he’s heart-poundingly close to having enough to shake the dust of this burg off his feet and high-tail it to San Francisco.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That the Revolution's Near

**Author's Note:**

> AU, after 1928, before 1933, so period attitudes towards pretty much everything.
> 
> Arthur/Eames by implication only
> 
> Title from Shirley Bassey's "History Repeating"

~*~

Yusuf hates this town. He’s saving every cent he earns that isn’t going towards protection money, and he’s heart-poundingly close to having enough to shake the dust of this burg off his feet and high-tail it to San Francisco. He’s got almost all the capital he needs, his brother’s found them a partner in the form of a mysterious Japanese man called Saito, and he’s so close he can almost taste it. He’s almost out.

The money’s the easy part. The hard part is Ariadne. He won’t – can’t – leave without her, but she’s deep in Arthur’s pocket, and it’s going to take some careful maneuvering to get her out of that alive. She’s already started laying the groundwork, but it’s slow going. He doesn’t begrudge her that; she and Arthur are old friends, and you can’t just fuck over old friends like that. Particularly when your old friend is the undisputed king of organized crime in three states.

Seeing how Arthur effectively _is_ the town, it should come as no surprise that Yusuf hates Arthur passionately. Part of it’s that Arthur has a stranglehold on Yusuf, his shop, and the woman he loves. 

All right, perhaps that’s pretty much the lot.

There are things about the town Yusuf does like, however. He likes his shop, tucked away in a tiny corner of Chinatown. Never you mind that he’s nowhere near being Chinese, or Japanese, for that matter – there are places you can live and places you most definitely can’t when you’re not a white man, and Chinatown’s where the people of India seem to have drifted. 

He calls his shop an apothecary with some pride, sells herbal tonics and oils and tisanes and teas that come from India in wooden crates, keeps jars of mysterious content on the shelves and strings of drying herbs hanging from the rafters to give the place a vaguely disreputable air. He occasionally tells bullshit fortunes to wide-eyed tourists who are feeling brave enough – or drunk enough – to get a thrill in Chinatown. If they can’t tell Chinese from Indian from Romany, he’s certainly not going to feel bad about taking their money.

He likes most of his neighbors; even when they barely share a common language, they manage to communicate and get along smashingly. He likes Chinatown itself, with all its crowded streets and its crush of people, its smells both familiar and tantalizingly not, the sounds of so many different languages being spoken at once, the peculiar mixture of music drifting through the air after the sun’s gone down – Chinese, Japanese, Indian, American jazz, some strange rolling drums from the West Indies, even Russian on occasion from the Sarnoff clip joint down the street. 

And of course, there’s Ariadne. But he’s not thinking of her now. 

But oh, how he hates the man walking in the door of his shop right this very second. Fucking Eames. Eames is one of main reasons Yusuf hates this goddamn town. He’s thought it would net him a nice bit of extra pocket change, being the relay point for an undercover agent, deliver a letter or two a couple times a month, not much too it, right? 

Brother, had he been wrong about that. Since Eames threw in his lot with Arthur and went gleefully about pulling the wool over the eyes of the Bureau of Prohibition, Yusuf’d be marked a knowing accomplice if anything went south, and Yusuf has no illusions as to who Arthur would pitch to the wolves first. And don’t think for a second that Eames doesn’t rub that in any time he gets half a chance.

Eames is the reason Yusuf is so very well and properly trapped in this rathole of a town. Eames could probably find a hundred little street punks who’d be more than willing to deliver his letters, just for the chance to be working for Arthur, but Eames has “taken a liking” to Yusuf and refuses to find someone else. If not for Eames, Yusuf could request a meeting with Arthur and plead his (and Ariadne’s) case. Much as Yusuf hates him, Ariadne insists that Arthur’s not unreasonable, and Yusuf would be willing to take the risk of asking to be let out of this suffocating contract. 

“Mr. Eames,” Yusuf greets coolly, not turning from the scales where he’s weighing out some saffron for Mrs. Parekh. “How may I help you today?”

Yusuf’s shop is fairly small, and Eames, all broad shoulders and muscular bulk, seems to fill the entire room. Between that and the incense, Yusuf finds it hard to breathe when Eames is in here. At least he tells himself it’s the incense.

“Just got a letter needs delivering,” Eames says, throwing an envelope on the counter. Yusuf finds it amusing that Eames’ speech patterns change depending on who he’s talking to. If one knows to listen for it, occasionally a flat, British vowel can be heard in Eames’ voice. Not often, though. Eames is too good for that. Usually it means he’s been drinking, and Yusuf keeps his ears peeled, because Drunk Eames can get nasty. 

Of course Eames doesn’t leave – probably because Yusuf wishes so fiercely that he would. Instead, he mills around the shop, touching things, removing corks and smelling of vile-coloured liquids in bottles, squinting at the painting of Ganesh that hangs over the door to the storeroom. He does this every time he comes in, and it never gets any less nerve-wracking. If Eames so desired, he could utterly wreck Yusuf’s shop, break every single bottle in stock, grind all the merchandise to dust beneath his bootheel, and there’s not a thing that Yusuf or anyone else could do to stop Arthur’s bodyguard from doing whatever the fuck he wanted to.

“Did you wish to make a purchase?” Yusuf asks, just like he does every time. “I’ve just received a lovely shipment of Assam leaves.” 

Something flares briefly in Eames’ eyes: nostalgia or longing or anger, Yusuf isn’t sure, but he feels vindicated nonetheless. He knows Eames is British, he knows Eames has tried to make himself into a proper American thug– and has done quite a splendid job of it, to be fair, Yusuf isn’t sure even Arthur knows Eames’ true heritage. And proper American thugs don’t drink Assam tea, no matter how much the British man underneath might be perishing for a nice cuppa. It’s maybe not the smartest move, antagonizing Eames, but it’s the only bit of leverage he’s got over the other man. Well, not the _only_ bit, but Yusuf isn’t stupid enough to let on that he knows Eames’ relationship with Arthur isn’t all business.

“Nice little setup you’ve got here,” Eames drawls, running a fingertip down a braid of Bhut Jolokia peppers. “Probably pull in a decent profit, don’t you, even after payin’ out?” 

“Enough to put food on the table,” Yusuf replies evenly, although his heart’s going a mile a minute. _There’s no way Eames can know how much you’ve got tucked away, he tells himself. No way at all. Not even Ariadne knows._

Eames flashes a shark’s grin. “And a smoke now and then, hey? Maybe one of the girls down at Liu’s, if they’ll have you? Not like the little piece you’ve got tucked away uptown is going to find out.”

He hasn’t hit anyone since the war ended, but Yusuf longs to punch the man right in the nose, feel the tiny bones break beneath his fist, maybe grab the wooden staff under the counter and beat Eames to the ground. He could do it; he was a first-rate soldier, earned a medal for his “bravery” and for the wound he took. He’s knocked around men larger than Eames, or at least they seemed larger at the time.

But of course he can’t. No matter how much Eames can’t leave the war behind, Yusuf’s settled back into the civilian life with more ease than he’d expected, he’s not a violent man, and this isn’t a battlefield. No matter how persistently Arthur and his thugs try to make it one. 

He doesn’t bother to wonder how Eames knows about Ariadne. 

Eames is studying him through narrowed eyes, calculating, as if he wants Yusuf to give him an excuse to lay waste to his shop and his entire life. He sticks his hands in his pockets and begins to whistle, a tuneless string of notes, letting his gaze roam around the shop, kicking at boxes and crates with seeming aimlessness. “You could probably do a fair trade in a bigger town,” he muses, and Yusuf tenses at the insinuation in the other man’s voice. “Some place more cosmopolitian.”

“You know, I left England to get _away_ from the damned British,” Yusuf snaps; unwise, perhaps, and not his best comeback ever , but if he understands anything about Eames, it’s that Eames likes to intimidate people, and that Eames doesn’t like it when people don’t fight back.

Eames stops whistling, shoots a look at Yusuf, then gives a soft laugh that’s almost truly amused. “Yeah,” Eames says, turning towards the door. “So did I.” He pauses halfway out into the street, and points to the letter on the countertop. “Make sure that gets where it needs to go.”

“Don’t I always?” Yusuf allows exasperation to creep into his tone. 

Eames chuckles, and this laugh is a hard, flat sound. “If you know what’s good for you.”

Yusuf waits til Eames is definitely gone, then he locks the door, draws all the shades, goes upstairs, and moves his bed away from the wall. He examines the area around loose board for signs of tampering. It’s ridiculous, he knows it is, no-one knows about the little metal box tucked away inside the wall except him, there’s no way at all Eames could know about the stash of greenbacks that’s his ticket out of here. 

He takes the box out, studies it closely for new scratches around the locks or hinges before opening it up; counts the money inside twice, just to be certain. It’s all still there, of course it is. Just touching the thick stack of bills calms him. _This is going to work. This is going to work. California, here I come._

Satisfied, Yusuf returns to the shop and sets about straightening everything Eames disturbed. Putting everything to rights is soothing; he lights another stick of incense, in hopes of banishing the smell of Eames’ cologne.

He _has_ to get out of this fucking town. He sits at the counter, takes out a sheet of paper, and begins to write a letter to Ariadne. He can’t shake the feeling that Eames _knows_ something, and if Eames knows, it’s only a matter of time before Arthur does, and Ariadne has to speak with Arthur before Arthur finds out on his own. Eames is never going to leave him alone; over time, Yusuf has come to the conclusion that, perversely, Eames’ “liking” of him is entirely dependent on Yusuf’s accent. That Yusuf reminds Eames of England. 

And considering what pains Eames has taken to make himself a new person, to wipe away every trace of his past, this does not bode well for Yusuf’s continued existence. He’s positive that one day Eames is going burn the shop to the ground, with its proprietor inside, for no reason other than to destroy that one, small weakness. 

Money’s not the only thing in the lockbox. Under the money, under a false bottom, there’s another letter. That one’s addressed to Robert Fischer, the only gangster who’s come close to giving Arthur a run for his money in the bootlegging business. Half the shoot-outs that happen in this town are on account of Fischer trying to strong-arm his way into Arthur’s territory. 

Yusuf doesn’t want to send that letter unless there’s absolutely no other choice, unless he’s given up completely and sees no other way out. He knows what kind of bloodbath that letter could unleash. It’s not information about the workings of Arthur’s organization (although it could be; Yusuf may not know much but he does know enough to give Fischer an advantage), it’s only a few lines about Arthur’s personal life, a few more lines about Arthur’s bodyguard. Just enough to kick down the doors of Arthur’s tidy little enterprise.

He doesn’t _want_ to send it. Yusuf doesn’t particularly care what Arthur and Eames get up to behind closed doors, but a man’s got to consider all his options. And in a crime-rotten town like this, sometimes a man’s got to be a little merciless.


End file.
